Craigie Aitchison

Craigie Aitchison was born in in 1926. He started training “I wished to be part of 'Inspired' after being told the reasons for the to become a lawyer but abandoned this career and entered the Slade exhibition. I loved being in Arran - it was the happiest time of my School of Art in 1952. Aitchison’s first one man show was in 1959. childhood and I still have an affinity with the island” . Craigie Aitchison Since then he has exhibited widely in the United Kingdom, and overseas in locations as diverse as Tokyo (1969), Delhi (1984) and Jerusalem (1992). In 1953, during his second year at the Slade, he won the prize for the best still life and two years later he was awarded the British Council Italian Government Scholarship to Rome. In the intervening years he has received many awards, including the Jerwood Prize in 1994. A solo exhibition of his work was held at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow in 1996. In 1998 he completed a commission for Liverpool Cathedral. Since 2000, Craigie has had several solo shows, including 3 in one year in 2008, one of which was in Tokyo, in the Paul Smith ‘Space’ Gallery. Craigie Aitchison was elected on to the RA in 1988 and was made a CBE in 1999. He lives and works in London.

Isle of Arran, from Mainland

2008 Oil on canvas 30.5 x 25.4 cm Fiona Banner

Fiona Banner was born in 1966, Merseyside, England. Much of her “The words in this work are mapping out the space of the page, work explores the problems and possibilities of written language. Her in terms of the body, or in terms emotional space - using known early work took the form of ‘wordscapes’ or ‘still films’. However graphic terms.” Fiona Banner Banner’s current work encompasses sculpture, drawing and installation but text is still at the heart of her practice. She recently turned her attention to the idea of the classic, art-historical nude, observing a life model and transcribing the pose and form in a similar vein to her earlier transcription of films. Often using parts of military aircraft as the support for these descriptions, Banner juxtaposes the brutal and the sensual, performing an almost complete cycle of intimacy and alienation.She is represented in many important collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Philadelphia Museum; Walker Art Gallery, Minneapolis; The Arts Council of England and the Tate Gallery, London. She was short-listed for the Turner Prize 2003. She lives and works in London. www.fionabanner.com

Anatomy of a Book

2009 erased book, lettraset 23x17x3cm (unframed) David Begbie

David Begbie was born in Edinburgh in 1955. He is world renowned for his innovative steelmesh sculpture which is exhibited, collected and imitated globally. He discovered the properties of his medium as a student at Winchester in 1977 and developed the idea as a post graduate at the Slade School of Sculpture, University College London. Begbie continues to be both inspired and challenged by the unlimited and inherent possibilities of his medium, and has literally invented and developed a unique art form and visual language. Using strategic lighting to create supremely optical compositions of line and form, each transparent sculpture has a greater palpable presence than the space which it occupies. Begbie offers movement whenever there is any shift of light so much so that these pieces can sometimes have an interactive element. He sets up a paradox by creating from this cold industrial material, delicate, sensual and powerful work that is completely contemporary, but which ultimately is timeless. He lives and works in London.

The inspiration for many poems, including “The Lass of Cessnock Banks” was Alison Begbie, the woman who Burns’s sister Isabella claimed was the love of his life. Very little in fact is known about Alison, save that Burns met her in the 1780’s near Lochlie in Ayrshire, and that he proposed marriage to her and was rejected. It is not entirely certain that Alison Begbie and David Begbie are directly related, however it is likely that a family connection does exist.

"I am proud to be Scottish, and is certainly Scotland’s most famous poet. This combined with his relationship with Alison Begbie, his first real love and the inspiration for many of his works has, over two centuries later, inspired me to create this portrait.” David Begbie . www.davidbegbie.com

Burns

2009 Steel Panel 60 cm x 130 cm x 18 cm (including plinth) John Bellany

Born at Port Seton in 1942 into a family of fishermen and boat builders and steeped in Calvinism as a child, John Bellany’s art is profoundly religious in its intimation of morality and recognition of evil. He is one of the most influential Scottish painters since the war, and has re- established a native, figurative art at a time when Modernism and abstraction seemed invincible. Throughout his career he has painted elemental allegories encompassing the complexities of the human condition and anchored in the rich poetry of the sea; but after moving to London in 1965 to study at the Royal College of Art, his vision and iconography became broader. His towering example has inspired a new pride in Scottish artists; a fact duly recognised when he was awarded the CBE. His paintings are in the collections of major museums and art galleries throughout the world, including the National Galleries of Scotland, The Tate Gallery, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Metropolitan Museum, New York.

Tam O Shanter Holy Willie’s Prayer

2009 2009 Ink Drawing Oil on Canvas 38x56cm 152.5x173cm Philip Braham

Philip Braham first came to the public attention in 1986 with the groundbreaking exhibition “The Vigorous Imagination” at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. It marked the new wave of figurative painting in Scotland that resonated with the prevailing spirit of Neo- expressionism in European art of the 80’s. He has exhibited widely since, notably in “Die Kraft Der Bilder” at the Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, in 1996, and in “New European Artists” at Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, in 2001. A major solo exhibition was held at the Talbot Rice Gallery in Edinburgh in 2000, and recent solo shows include The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh, and Osborne Samuel, London. He lives and works in Edinburgh.

"Robert Burns was a great humanist who united people of all class and creed, and recognised with awe and wonder that the fragile beauty of nature was everywhere to be seen. In the intimate he saw the profound, but he wrote with humility and humour, and sometimes with heart-aching regret, from the position of being one of us.

I have painted my imaginary image of "The Churchyard" to set the scene for the strange vision yet to unfold in the addled mind of Tam O'Shanter. It is a haunting, hallucinogenic image that is not specifically based on the Alloway churchyard, but I could imagine it's a place where Tam might meet some witches when he's had a few whiskies. It is a privilege to be invited to contribute to the "Inspired" exhibition in honour of our greatest poet." Phil Braham www.philipbraham.com

The Churchyard

2009 Oil on Linen 168 x 122 cm Roderick Buchanan

Roderick Buchanan was born in 1965. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast (2008), La Criée - Centre d'Art Contemporain, Rennes (2007), GoMA - Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (2007) and Camden Arts Centre, London (2005). His work has been shown in numerous museum exhibitions and international events including the 6th Taipei Biennial (2008), the XI Triennale-India, New Delhi (2005) as well as the 48th and 49th edition of the Venice Biennale (1999 and 2001). He has received an award from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, London (2004) and won the inaugural Beck’s Futures prize at the ICA – Institute of Contemporary Art, London (1999). He lives and works in Glasgow.

Number Crunching

The Scottish Insurrection of 1820 Peter Berresford Ellis and Seumas Mac a’ Ghobhainn Pluto Press 1989 2007 Mixed Media. Mounted photograph plus signed document. 45x63x4cm John Byrne

John Byrne was born in Paisley in 1940. An award winning graduate of the , Byrne subsequently took a job in a local carpet factory. However while there he continued to paint, with his visual art career taking off fairly soon afterwards, when his work reached a wide audience in the form of record covers for the Beatles, Gerry Rafferty and Billy Connolly. Byrne is also a successful playwright, having written, designed and directed stage and screen productions, including "Tutti Frutti" and "The Slab Boys", clearly inspired by his experience working in a carpet factory.

A Man’s a Man

2009 Watercolour and ink on gesso 35.5x30.5cm

Painting commissioned by The Famous Grouse John Cake and Darren Neave aka The Little Artists

Darren Neave and John Cake are The Little Artists. They have worked “The biggest thing about Rabbie Burns that has really intrigued us together since graduating from Leeds University in 1995 and currently is how he has been embraced within Modern Scotland and the live and work in London. They have exhibited internationally and are world - He has a national day (with celebration, singing and most well known for their scale-reproductions and photographs of dancing), a huge legacy, countless websites, his books, poems etc iconic modern art and artists in Lego. Elsewhere, they have produced are still published and updated and translated - you can even buy huge Scalextric installational drawings, filling gallery floors with metres a plate with him on! and metres of track animated by model minis. Other works include, edible ice-lolly sculptural editions of Marc Quinn’s iconic frozen blood- This has us fascinated with how, after 250 years he is a huge head sculpture ‘Self’, and exquisite hand-crafted toilet roll dolls that Scottish brand! use Grayson Perry’s dresses as their point of departure. New work combines Smurfs with Martin Kippenberger. We think a lot of artists and writers will deal directly with his writing - but for us and the nature of our work - we are being overwhelmed by how he is being consumed today... this has really caught our imagination.” “Many Scots words have their origin in Old Norse. The original French Schtroumpf noun has an equivalent in Old Norse as a form of Strumpr, Darren Neave and John Cake (The Little Artists) a strong masculine noun, relating to socks. (Much like the translation from French to German.) www.littleartist.co.uk

Skaldic poetry contains many kennings, obscure metaphors on which Viking poets drew heavily. One kenning which translated loosely as ‘tiny, dusty-blue peace-lovers’ has been glossed as Sturempas.

Already, we can observe that there have been two changes. One is metathesis (the changing round of r and a vowel, the change that produces third from an earlier form thrid etc).The other is the insertion of an epenthetic vowel (as in the common Scots pronunciations of arm as arrum and umbrella as umberella) between the r and the m, perhaps to avoid an unacceptable consonant cluster. This gives us the clue we need to derive the Modern Scots form Stoorum. The insertion of the vowel after the r provides a context for early Middle English Open Syllable Lengthening (which also applied to pre-Scots). This explains the Middle Scots spelling stourump. The long Germanic /u:/ as in Old English hus was represented by ou as the result of French influence after the Norman Conquest, and this carried over into Scots as well. The long high back rounded vowel in Scots remained unchanged by the Great Vowel Shift, but in English the vowel altered to the diphthong that appears in English HOUSE today. Because Scots are taught to read in English, they are taught to read the ou spelling Stoorum: a proposed Scots language as in English and the oo is therefore commonly used to capture the vowel word for Smurf in the Scots pronunciation of hoose, stoorum etc. The spelling variant stourum could still be preferred by some Scots.” 2009 30x30x30cm Christine Robinson MA PhD Mixed media in perspex display case Director 10x10x10cm Scottish Language Dictionaries Paper in plastic unit exhi bition T“ o was ed pain t and in n Bo r h at N also 2007 , e t ple Co m seen rapi ng, i ting wr in 198, “Alan an ted tas r by Ttulr e ic s, yr l if lmmaker Cas ti msoe m e My arSu g Lon don, at his ht e Edu catio n” maki ng Fine h Fires Ch elsea Mihc ael D han at N t Ar min fgor per vids a a mash deg ree k Du c was Space Shamberg is ups he t becau se on in course. live in of oN vember yt es o ung Pim li co. DVD s h wit who He it' s The paints and nt o t tis ar included Hi s 208. ts. Juli e Ho rse You fir st in proliif cally solo he t Tube it Head”. In in sho w exhi bition 206 het eag fot o whilts salon and, he It London ’s Hide With I The monster Roll-up, up Twitch Its Yo, “My Shine Infected Like Stream What Exploded The A 61 Oil 208 But t o press flavourless like and ok x I’m thunder on piston Witch childhood the out 61 or my h to the reject welded from board asks I king by e h t reflects surging say switch CM in where appearance with edges that Mombi, alleyways, the w e sings for my no, despite cream green as fu tips Gem out inspired idiom, a red light I he water of in grew, ki c my of the my folds i r the with roo ts collector’s cold like toads, Western gh cotch boat riding glows supreme n timid rushing wind’s my the no up over -head g and lonely t excuse, wildwood over odour my inside in piss frame t under on o lustful dreams, Bells my through metal 3-d Rhombus a eyes, the do shades, screen’s a sting, my experience the projectors, ring li grin, collapsed road detector ke where what Influence rhythm the with refurbish green one neon y fords, o my the of at hideout breddah shows

u Photo: Tom Saunderson NEX Images he for disease Zombie green hideous the night in my are the the loch di urban for five shoots shit city’s comes d, ness metres I turbulence, produce” blaze, wide, Chapman Brothers

Jake and Dinos Chapman were born in the UK in 1966 and 1962, respectively; the brothers live and work in London. Jake and Dinos Chapman make iconoclastic sculpture, prints and installations that examine, with searing wit and energy, contemporary politics, religion and morality. They have exhibited extensively, including solo shows at Tate Britain (2007), Tate Liverpool (2006), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2005), Museum Kunst Palast Düsseldorf (2003), Modern Art Oxford (2003) and PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2000). Group exhibitions have included: Summer Exhibition 2007, Annenberg Courtyard, Royal Academy of Arts, London, ARS 06, Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA, Helsinki and the Turner Prize, Tate Britain (2003).

The same thing only in Scottish

2009 Calum Colvin

Born in Glasgow in 1961, Calum Colvin was a winner of one of the first Scottish Arts Council Creative Scotland Awards. He was awarded an OBE in 2001 and is Professor of Fine Art Photography at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee. Colvin’s artworks have been widely exhibited in venues as diverse as Orkney, Los Angeles and Ecuador. A practitioner of both sculpture and photography, Colvin brings these disciplines together in his unique style of ‘constructed photography’: assembled tableaux of objects, which are then painted and photographed. His complex compositions are rich in association and spatial ambiguities. His work is held in numerous collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Fine Art, Houston; The Victoria and Copy of the original Albert Museum, London as well as the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh and the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow.

“I was keen to take part in 'Inspired' because I feel that an exhibition about Burns, or rather artworks inspired by Burns, created by a wide variety of contemporary artists, is a great idea!

We are so used to celebrating Burns on a yearly basis in so many ways except the visual, and this exhibition will, in the 250th anniversary of his birth, redress this balance.” Calum Colvin

This image is based on the ‘Twa Plack’ label/stamp produced in 1959 by the Scottish Secretariat (a radical organisation founded in 1926) as part of an unsuccessful campaign to persuade the Postmaster General to issue a commemorative stamp to mark the bicentennial year of Burns’ birth (stamp was finally issued in 1966). They were frequently placed (illegally) next to the official postage stamp and thus postmarked, but more often than not stuck on lamp-posts, walls and the windows of Glasgow tram cars.

A plack was a small copper coin, the sixtieth part of a pound Scots (ie two-thirds of an English penny), and although the coin itself had long since ceased to circulate since the time of Burns, the expression was still current in many popular sayings, and, indeed, it figures in Burns poems to signify a trifling sum.

My version, fifty years later, hints at financial turmoil and devalued Twa Plack currencies in a time of less clear-cut political opposition. 2009 www.calumcolvin.com Photograph collage Ken Currie

Ken Currie was born in North Shields in 1960. He studied Social Science at Paisley College of Technology, followed by Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art from 1978-83. Currie's work contains three broad, inter-related areas: a group of paintings concerned with how the human body is affected by illness, ageing and physical injury; a group of works exploring social and political issues and finally a set of more elusive images speculating on abstract or philosophical questions. Many of the paintings at first appear impenetrable, but it is their ambiguity that gives them their power. Ken has exhibited widely and his work is included in many collections throughout the world. He lives and works in Glasgow.

A Man is a Man

2008 oil on panel 45x60cm CutUp Collective

CutUp are an anonymous collective of multi-disciplinary artists based in East London, who work in outdoor intervention, film, sound and installation. Their work focuses largely on the processes of disruption inherent in the everyday and on the reconfiguring of pre-existing systems. CutUp live and work in London.

“The new work we will deconstruct the poem Sappho Redivivus in to the components for a sound intervention and key lines such as; 'Point out a censuring world, and bid me fear', influence the melancholic destruction of the burning tower imagery.” www.cutupcollective.com

2009

Film Hugh Dodd

Hugh’s satirical illustration work focuses on social commentary casting “I am drawn to how Burns displayed in his words and song such a a sharp but humorous eye over everyday life. His brilliant wonderful empathy with the individual. His intrinsic compassion has watercolours display a preoccupation with the foibles of human frailty always moved me, but more so his abilities to connect with the humble and the paradoxes therein. In the nineties Hugh created the ‘City and indeed commonplace seems always to have set him so far apart. Croft’, a daily cartoon strip with Maxwell Macleod which ran for 3 The smallest of things which might have seemed quite inconsequential years in the Herald, Hugh has also established a reputation as both to us he noticed and glorified with a focus profound and better still, a figurative and landscape painter. Since the eighties, he has often laced with a serious belt of humour thrown in. I just love that sense contributed to several UK publications as both editor and feature of his perception!” Hugh Dodd writer covering several different areas including art, antiques and golf. He lives and works in East Lothian. “My picture celebrates a Burns supper somewhere in Scotland in a somewhat formal setting. Much is happening as an untutored guest, www.hughdodd.com visitor or novice, demands something of the waiter...whatever it is has truly shocked the assembled company big time and something is about to happen! I am a great fan of H.M.Bateman who, in the 1930s, tackled similar social subject matter often titling pictures with – “The man who...... ” Hugh Dodd

The Man who ordered a soufflé at a Burns Supper (Working title)

2009 Watercolour and gouache 63.5x38.5cm (68x42cm framed) Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin was born in London in 1963, and studied at Maidstone College of Art and the Royal College of Art, London. She has exhibited extensively internationally including solo and group exhibitions in Holland, Germany, Japan, Australia and America. In 2007 Emin represented Britain at the 52nd Venice Biennale, was made a Royal Academician and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal College of Art, London, and a Doctor of Letters from the University of Kent and Doctor of Philosophy from London Metropolitan University. She lives and works in London.

"There's a Robbie Burns poem about a large penis called 'Nine Inch Will Please a Lady'. I find that very inspiring." Tracey Emin www.tracey-emin.co.uk

Sweet thing Photo: Scott Douglas

1994 Monoprint 14.7 x 10.5 cm David Ersser

David Ersser was born in 1976 in Lincoln. He studied at Chelsea School “The pieces for this show are looking at the objects in Burns’ life outside of Art between 1999 and 2002. In 2005 David co-curated the group of the writer and cultural figurehead we all know. show, 'Larry's Cocktails' at Gagosian Gallery London and the following year had his first solo show at Seventeen in London. In September 2007 The work will represent some of the items he will either have had around he had his first solo exhibition in New York at Roebling Hall and followed him or else used daily in his life as an excise officer..” that with a solo booth at Volta New York Art Fair in April 2008. David Ersser His second solo show at Seventeen was in October 2008 and he is currently working on a number of projects for 2009. David lives and works in London.

From an Archive From an Archive From an Archive (Silhouette) (Reconstructed Stick) (Chair)

2009 2009 2009 Milliput, Balsa Wood, Burnt Milliput, Butyrate, Perspex, Balsa Wood, Paper, Tea Balsa Wood Balsa Wood 53 x 54 x 117 cm 38.5 x 45 x 3 cm 99.5 x 48.5 x 13 cm Sale Price £3500 Sale Price £1500 Sale Price £3000 Graham Fagen

Fagen was born in 1966. He studied at the Glasgow School of Art and the Kent Institute of Art and Design. He has exhibited extensively within the UK including solo exhibitions at The Fruitmarket, Edinburgh; Imperial War Museum, London; Tramway, Glasgow and Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow. In 2006 Fagen began collaboration with Graham Eatough, creative director of Suspect Culture Theatre Company, and worked together on an ambitious solo project; Killing Time at Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee. Graham Fagen lives and works in Glasgow.

Where the Heart Is (Bronze Hybrid Tea Rose) Liberty Tree

2002 2009 bronze Pen and ink with gouache and a signed 50x50x50cm thumb print with etched text Edition 1 of 3 21x29.7cm Moyna Flannigan

Moyna Flannigan was born in Scotland in 1963. She studied at 1981-85 and Yale University School of Art 1985-87. She was a Lecturer in Painting at Glasgow School of Art for 10 years until 2005. Recent solo shows include her series of portrait miniatures, Once Upon Our Time, commissioned by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery 2004, A Pie in the Kisser at Sara Meltzer Gallery, New York 2005, Poke at Galerie Akinci, Amsterdam 2006, and Well, well at doggerfisher Gallery, Edinburgh 2006. In 2007 she made a contemporary intervention, “A footprint in the hall”, in the historical collection at Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute. She was the recipient of a Creative Scotland Award from the Scottish Arts Council in 2005.

Wie Geht's

2008 50 x 45cm Oil on linen Tom Gallant

Tom Gallant held a fellowship at the Royal Academy Schools in 2001 followed by a residency at Stichting B.a.d, Rotterdam in 2003 and his first solo show at Museum 52 in 2004, Collector I. Gallant's work is included in many major international collections and his critically acclaimed recent exhibitions include; Changing Role Move Over Gallery, Naples, BOYSCraft, Haifa Museum, Tel Aviv, Excess at the Angel Row Museum, Nottingham. Upcoming exhibitions include a major new commission for 'Slash: Paper Under the Knife', Museum of Arts and Design, New York, October 2009 - January 2010.

“My inspiration to take part in this exhibition is directly tied to my endless fascination with the language of the folk tale, the nature of collecting and preserving literature and the nature and reputation of the lives of the writers and poets that oft precede their works.” Tom Gallant

To gie them music was his charge

2009 Cut paper and collage 63 x76cm Douglas Gordon

Douglas Gordon was born in Glasgow in 1966. He studied at the Glasgow and Slade Schools of Art. Through his work in video, photography, and sculpture, he addresses and explores universal dualities such as life and death, good and evil. Gordon has had several major solo exhibitions over the last 10 years, with the more recent ones including: the Lambert Collection, and the Palais des Papes, Avignon (July 2008),'Superhumanatural' at the National Gallery of Scotland (2007), 'Between Darkness and Light' at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg (2007), and 'Timeline' at MoMA, New York (2006). In 2005, he curated 'The Vanity of Allegory', an exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin and released the film 'Zidane - A 21st Century Portrait'. Gordon has received many awards: he was the 1996 recipient of the British Turner Prize, in 1997 was awarded Premio 2000 at the Venice Biennial and most recently, in May 2008, he won the Roswitha Haftmann Prize awarded by the Kunsthaus Zuerich. In the same year Gordon was Juror at the 65tth International Venice Film Festival, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice. Gordon now lives and works in Berlin, Glasgow and New York.

Douglas Gordon burning some posters in the studio Vivienne Haig

Vivienne Haig is a painter and a glass artist. She studied at Camden Arts Centre, St Martins School of Art and Edinburgh College of Art. She has been on the edge of certain influences during her development. Primarily, those of Victor Pasmore, Claude Rogers, William Gillies, and, to an extent Paul Maze. At Edinburgh Vivienne Haig became interested in a group of artists who formed “The salon de Mai” Alfred Manessier and Nicholas de Stael for example. She investigates her subject in terms of light and form and records evolving statements which arise by feelings in front of nature. Her work has been shown at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh.Her previous commissions include, 14 leaded lights for Oriel college, Oxford University and she is currently designing 5 lancet windows and 1 rose window for St Patrick’s Catholic Church, Soho, London.

The Fear (inspired by Tam o’ Shanter)

2009 Oil on canvas 90cm x 70cm. Kent Henricksen

Kent Henricksen has had solo exhibitions with John Connelly Presents, New York; Hiromi Yoshii, Tokyo; Galleria Glance, Torino; c/o - Atle Gerhardsen, Berlin; and Mario Diacano, Boston. His works have been exhibited in The Gold Standard (2006) and Greater New York (2005) at PS 1 Museum of Contemporary Art, NY; ARS 06, Museum of Contemporary Art KIASMA, Helsinki, Finland; Crafty, curated by Lisa Tung, Sandra and David Bakalar Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA; Pricked: Extreme Embroidery, at the Museum of Art and Design, New York, NY and 'Art in the Parks Celebrating 40 Years: 1967-2007' where Henricksen showed a bronze sculpture in Seward Park in lower Manhattan. His work is in the permanent collections of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC and the Harvard University Fogg Museum.

Come tell me dame

2009 Embroidery thread and silkscreen on silk 52.5x37.5cm (57x42x6cm framed) Peter Howson

Born in 1958, Peter Howson has established a formidable reputation “I have never felt happy about the way Burns’ image is used in a way as one of his generation's leading figurative painters. Many of his which I think degrades him. I have always considered him to be the paintings derive inspiration from the streets of Glasgow, where he was greatest poet and songwriter that ever lived so I am really pleased to brought up. He is renowned for his penetrating and vigorous insight into have the opportunity to be involved in “Inspired” . Peter Howson the human condition, and his heroic portrayals of the mighty and meek. In 1992 he was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to record the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, an event which changed his perspective entirely. Howson feels very strongly about the way Burns tends to be sentimentalised. Via his work for Inspired, Howson hopes to help to dispel the myths around Burns and to reveal his vision of the ‘real’ Burns. His oil perfectly encapsulates a moment of pure inspiration while in the Burns drawing series, there is a stark contrast between the first drawing, depicting a more populist image of Burns, and the fifth, where we see an utterly desolate figure. www.peterhowson.co.uk

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Burns Drawing Series: Inspiration 2009 2009 Howson 1 is 20 x 29 (mount 41 x 51) Oil sketch Howson 2 is 40 x 30 (mount 58 x 51) 129x183 Howson 5 is 38 x 29 (mount 56 x 48) Kenny Hunter

Born in Edinburgh in 1962, Kenny Hunter studied sculpture at Glasgow School of Art between 1983 and 1987. He has exhibited extensively in Britain and abroad including solo exhibitions at Arnolfini 1998, Scottish National Portrait Gallery 2000, CCA 2003, Yorkshire Sculpture Park 2006 and Tramway, 2008. Hunter has also created a number of high profile, commissioned works in Scotland, including Citizen Firefighter, 2001, outside Glasgow’s Central Station and Youth with split apple, 2005 for Kings College, Aberdeen.

Hunter lives and works in Glasgow.

Mirth, melancholy, misfortune and the muse (edition of 3)

2008 Plaster, paint, linen, feathers 33 x 33 x 15 cm Alison Jackson

Alison Jackson is an award-winning contemporary artist who shows her work in galleries and museums, as well as through the media of mass communication. Jackson studied sculpture at Chelsea College of Art and photography at the RCA, and has been awarded the ICP Infinity Award for Photography and The Photographers Gallery Award. Television projects have included the BAFTA award-winning BBC Television series 'Double Take’. Publications include Taschen “Confidential” and Penguin “Private”. Recent exhibitions include the Liverpool Biennial and 'Theatre Luminaries of the 21st Century' photographic collection for J. Sheekey. Jackson is currently making a programme about celebrity culture in relation to the work of Andy Warhol and her own practice for the South Bank Show. www.alisonjackson.com

Bex in Kilt (after a heavy Burns night in Scotland!)

2009 C-Print 31x41cm Edition 5 Itamar Jobani

Born in Israel in 1980, Itamar currently lives and works New York.He graduated from Beit-Berl College, Israel, with a major in Fine Arts where after his graduation, he joined as part of the faculty and taught Video- Art and New- Media. He also received a BA with honours from Tel-Aviv University with a double major in Philosophy and Film Studies. He then went on and studied at Pratt Institute, NY, focusing on sculpture and new media. Jobani has had several shows in Israel and aboard, including shows in Herzeliya Biennale, Martin-Groupis- Bau, Berlin, Three Rivers Arts Festival gallery in Pittsburgh, White-Box Gallery, New York and solo shows at Andrea Meislin Gallery, New York and VOLTA NY.

“The installation is inspired by the nightly theme of Robert Burns poem "Tam O'Shanter." In this poem, I was stunned by the powerful graphic images that Burns describes and also by his ability to lift an everyday accident to a colourful scene. I was also moved by "To a mouse", and by the way Burns contemplates about the human condition through a simple encounter with a mouse. In the Installation "Nightly encounter" I'm trying to recreate this magical transformation that I found in Burns writing. A man standing in a furrow of a rural field, having a short break from ploughing or maybe just looking at the land, and creating his own enchanted vision. Although the vision is his own, it is so vivid and intriguing, that everyone who watches it is given the power of his imagination. They see themselves participating in that reflective image.” Itamar Jobani www.itamarjobani.com

“Nightly Encounter”.

2009 Interactive Video Installation Holly Johnson

Holly Johnson was born in Liverpool in 1960. Holly is perhaps best known for his musical career, in particular his work during the ‘Frankie goes to Hollywood’ years in the eighties. The band achieved global success, selling millions of records. However what is less well known is that, since the late seventies, he has also continued to develop his artistic practice, in both drawing and painting. In November 1991 Holly discovered he was HIV positive and although he continued to paint, he started to write his autobiography and began coming to terms with his AIDS diagnosis. Holly has since exhibited work at the Liverpool Biennial, NOVAS Contemporary Urban Centre in Liverpool, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Royal College of Art, Salford Museum and Art Gallery, and Tate Liverpool. www.hollyjohnson.com

The Flower of Love

Hand coloured Etching with Watercolour and Gold Leaf 26x32cms 44x56cms framed Edition size 50 (25 are for sale through “Inspired”) Masakatsu Kondo

Masakatsu Kondo was born in Nagoya, Japan in 1962. He studied at the Chelsea College of Art in 1988-89 and the Slade School of Fine Art in 1989-93. He won the Granada Foundation Prize 1993 at the Young Contemporaries Whitworth Art Gallery Manchester and a joint second prize in John Moores 20 1997. His other shows include those at the East International Norwich and John Moores 21 1999 as well as Shooting Star Surface at Nederlands Foto Instituut, Rotterdam 2001, Scarecrow at the Evangelos Averoff Museum, Metsovo Greece and Nature in the 2009 Dream at the Gunma Museum of Art, Tatebayashi 2006. His solo shows Oil on canvas also include the David Risley Gallery, London in 2003 and 2007. 60x75cm Whyn Lewis

Whyn Lewis was born in Edinburgh in 1973 and is perhaps best known for her unique and almost obsessive paintings of Whippets. She graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1995 and has since had six solo shows in the UK. She has won several awards including five from the Royal Scottish Academy. As well as by subject, Whyn's paintings tend to be recognisable by the strong and highly detailed forms of animals drawn against plain, layered background colours. Rejoic’d She uses the shapes and symbolism of the animals as narrative, sometimes introducing clues in the form of small trinkets and jewel-like 2009 objects hanging from the subjects' collars. Whyn's work has been Oil on canvas shown in Scotland, England and the USA. 76x51cm David Mach

After completing his MA at the Royal College, London, in 1982, “Scotland seems to do this thing, we have characters in our history and Mach has lived and worked in London. He has worked extensively in our lives who are huge and kind of loom over us, Burns is one of them, in many different countries and has work in many collections, both like Billy Connolly except not so funny. I am always in two minds about private and public. He is a Royal Academician, an Honorary Royal Burns, I sympathise with his politics, but he was a tax man. In fact I feel Scottish Academician, a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery and he is probably more relevant today than he has ever been. I think we ask is Professor of Inspiration and Discovery at Dundee University. Mach more questions today about ourselves, who we are, class distinctions, has used everyday, recognisable, mass-produced objects in multiples, what we expect, and so on. Being Scottish always gets more complicated notably newspapers, magazines, car tyres, matches, wire coathangers because of our love affair with guilt and the terrible risk we run of maybe and postcards throughout his career. He brings diverse items together getting above ourselves. Burns is still a cruel reminder of these things.” from large-scale installations, to small, identifiable faces or figures David Mach with humour and social comment. www.davidmach.com

Burns and the School Of Love

photograph sliced over thousands of postcards of Corregio’s painting ‘Venus with Mercury and Cupid (The School of Love)’, Postcards on board 122x122cm (140x140cm framed) Mikhail Magaril

Born in 1950 in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), U.S.S.R., Mikhail immigrated to the United States in 1990 and lives and works in New York City. Mikhail Magaril graduated from Moscow Poligraphic Institute, Leningrad in 1973 with a degree in Graphic Arts. He served in the Russian army in a tank regiment and worked for several publishing houses. Since coming to America he has been artist in residence and instructor at the New York Center for Book Arts, worked as a freelance illustrator for the New York Times, and founded his own publishing company: Summer Garden Editions. Magaril has developed a painting style he calls Zhart, characterized by vibrant colors and optical illusions as a means of depicting macabre political themes through humour and sarcasm. His works have been displayed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The Hermitage Museum, Contemporary Arts Center of Virginia, The Brooklyn Museum, as well as Princeton, Harvard and Yale Universities. Putins of the Year

2008 Oil on Canvas “As an adolescent, I became acquainted with Robert Burns through the 210x335cm approx Russian translations of Samuel Marshak, and was amazed at how contemporary and relevant Burns seemed. At a time of such strong Soviet censorship, Russian readers received a taste of freedom through the poetry of Burns. When I immigrated to America in 1990, Burns' book of poetry was among the items I was able to salvage among the few possessions we were allowed aboard the plane. The chance to participate in this show has evoked memories of my youth and working with Burns' epigrams has allowed me to explore the satire I have always admired in this poet's work.” Mikhail Magaril (Russian, living and working in New York)

Daily Bread

2008 Oil on Canvas 122cm x 122cm Chad McCail

Chad McCail was born in 1961 in Manchester and grew up in “While I believe Burns was only too aware of all human faculties, I have Edinburgh. He lives and works in Thankerton, South Lanarkshire. chosen to depict a scene of jealousy. Despite looking, I couldn't find a Having first read English at the University of Kent, he later poem which really explored jealousy. However I thought that Burns graduated in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College, London, in 1989. might have recognised the bear-masked man and the intentions of his His work explores the links between sexual repression, violence and friends to prevent any violent outburst.” Chad McCail unquestioning obedience. Accompanied by slogan-like captions, his brightly coloured paintings and digital works are reminiscent of When matters of the heart were clearly a large part of Burns’s life, it educational graphics but also draw on visual sources as various as is interesting that sexual jealousy isn’t an emotion which he looked at Egyptian hieroglyphs and vintage science fiction. Besides creating very closely. There is a line in one of his poems depicting the envy of storyboards, free-standing panels and billboards he has published an old man for youth - "He hums and he hankers, he frets and he a graphic novel, Active Genital (2002) and an online sim-society cankers, I never can please him do a' that I can. He's pevish an jealous game based on McCail’s drawings, spring_alpha, has been o a' the young fellows -- o, dool on the day I met wi an auld man!" . devised by Simon Yuill. Also, as can be seen in a quote from one of his brother Gilbert’s letters, he was victim to a different form of the emotion: “He had always a www.chadmccail.co.uk particular jealousy of people who were richer than himself, ...”

Puberty 2

2008 screenprint, 74 x 103 cm, unframed edition size 30 Harland Miller

Harland Miller was born in Yorkshire in 1964 and lives in London. Group exhibitions include Royal Academy, London (2006, 2005), Kunsthalle, Mannheim (2004) and the ICA, London (1996). Miller achieved critical acclaim with his debut novel, Slow down Arthur, Stick to Thirty, (2000). In 2001 Miller produced a series of paintings based on the dust jackets of Penguin books. By combining the motif inherent in the Penguin book, Miller found a way to marry aspects of Pop Art, abstraction and figurative painting at once, with his writer’s love of text. Miller continues to create work in this vein, expanding the book covers to include his own phrases, some hilarious and absurd. Miller was the Writer in Residence at the ICA for 2002; during this time one season was devoted to the ongoing influence and legacy of Edgar Allen Poe who in 2008 became the subject of a highly acclaimed exhibition, curated by Miller, and shown at White Cube.

Poetry seriously damages your health

2008 Cigarette packet 10 x 9.5 x 2.5 cm Watercolour on paper and cigarette packet Watercolour 121.5 x 152cm Gordon Mitchell

Gordon Mitchell was born in Edinburgh in 1952 and studied at Edinburgh College of Art. He has exhibited widely and has received numerous prestigious awards and prizes. His work is included in many private and public collections including NatWest, RBS, Kansas City Art Institute and The Knesset.

“If humour- black or not- is a key intellectual weapon, allowing Mitchell to deliver his message in a disarming way, then his technique is its companion. What so often makes these visual images so arresting is the illusion of reality. It is actually a “delusion” of reality because so often the reality depicted in these canvases is only obtainable in art.” Roger Billcliffe

“The painting ‘Gaein back’ hopes to capture Robert Burns’ feelings, thoughts and memories, whilst supposedly recuperating on the south- west coast of Scotland before he died.” Gordon Mitchell www.gordonmitchell.co.uk

Gaein back

2009 Oil on canvas 81.5x116.5cm Paul Morrison

Paul Morrison was born in 1966 in Liverpool and lives and works in Sheffield and London. Morrison graduated from Goldsmiths College in 1998 and has since developed an international reputation through major museum exhibitions and commissions. His solo institutional exhibitions include: Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester (2009); Las Vegas Art Museum, Nevada; Bloomberg Space, London (2007); The Contemporary Museum, Hawaii (2006); IMMA, Dublin (2003); Magasin, Grenoble (2002); Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2000). Recent commissions include Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence (2008); Towada City, Aomori (2008); Western Bridge, Seattle (2006) and Bloomberg (Public Art Fund), New York (2005).

Dendrobium

2009 White gold leaf and acrylic on linen 72 x 48 cm Image courtesy the artist and Alison Jacques Gallery, London Ron Mueck

Ron Mueck was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1958. Mueck began Most recently his work has been shown in a touring exhibition that his career in Australia as a puppet maker, but has been entirely launched at The Cartier Foundation, Paris and he has been exhibited devoted to making sculpture since 1997 which was the same year his at the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, the Brooklyn work “Dead Dad” attracted considerable attention when it was Museum, New York, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, the included in the exhibition Sensation: Young British Artists from the Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth, The Andy Warhol Museum, Saatchi Collection at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Ron Mueck Pittsburgh and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in has participated in a number of group exhibitions and is collected by Kanazawa, attracting more than 1 million visitors. many important museums throughout the world. In 2000 the National Gallery in London invited him to be their Associate Artist for two years.

The Family Dog 'To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me' (from "Address to the Devil") 1996 Polyester resin, acrylic fibre 40x61x20.3cm Sacha Newley

Constantly in demand for his powerful and sensitive portraiture, ‘Burns worked for beauty, love and justice, and in so doing he Newley has produced iconic portraits of leading figures in film and celebrated life. I’m happy to be part of an exhibition inspired by his literature, including Oliver Stone, Billy Wilder, John Barry and generosity of spirit and the continuing relevance of his words. Poetry, William Goldman. Newley’s portraits of Gore Vidal and Christopher though it struggles in our time, still survives through infinite incarnations Reeve are in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery to speak the truth that will save us.’ Sacha Newley in Washington DC at The Smithsonian. His celebrated full-length portrait of Sir Nigel Hawthorne in character as mad King George III is in the permanent collection of the V&A. His monumental portrait head of Abraham Lincoln was recently acquired by the Lincoln Museum, in Lincoln, Illinois. www.sachanewley.com Robert Burns Inspired

2008 oil on linen 70x45cm 2.5cm deep Tom Phillips

Tom Phillips was born in London in 1937. While reading English at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, he, at the same time, studied drawing at the Ruskin School. He then went to Camberwell School of Art where his chief source of inspiration was Frank Auerbach. He won first prize at The John Moores Liverpool Exhibition in 1969 and subsequently went on to exhibit in many solo and group exhibitions around the world. Two early exhibitions of particular significance were the 1973 showing of 'A Humument' in its entirety at the ICA, London and the 1975 retrospective at the Kunsthalle in Basel. More recently in 2001 an exhibition of his drawings was held at the Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth.

Phillips is also known as a writer and a composer. Much of his music (including the opera Irma) has been broadcast and is available on CD. He is currently working with composer Tarik O Regan on a chamber opera of Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness.

“I am pleased to have Burns infiltrate my long worked on book A Humument since his ardour as a love poet and political convictions have been such a durable inspiration to other poets. The page I have dedicated to him reflects this longevity and stresses via a verbal allusion to Elvis Presley his undying relevance." Tom Phillips www.tomphillips.co.uk

For Robert Burns with best wishes from Elvis Presley

2009 watercolour and collage on bookpage. 35 x 27cm framed. Robert Powell

Robert Powell graduated with a Masters in Fine Art in June 2008. Since then, his highly imaginative etchings have been exhibited in solo shows at the Henderson Gallery and the Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh, as well as in many group shows. In these etchings he has explained that he ‘sets out to provide a view of our own world made into others, unblinkingly etching out a labyrinthine, dystopian double’.

“A Tripartite Diptych is a triptych really, but since it deals with Burns, Scottish poetry and scholars it must, for the sake of convention be dual at least in titulation, joining Hyde and Hogg and both the Brodies in our nations duplicity.

I have tried to paint a portrait of Scottish Poetry and the values of Romanticism, from the moment liquid inspiration drizzles from the clouds of heaven right into the pint glass, to the tartan myth-weaving perpetrated by the canny legend Himself and those bespectacled scholars who watch teapots spinning in outer space.

In the centre, Robert Burns, our ultimate makar, that simple, educated, charmingly caddish farmer and excise man, having been struck over the head with painful genius is now walking the walk all the way to legend (or Edinburgh).

To his left, is the two-person poet Ossian/James Macpherson. The barbarian bard and Homer of the Scots had his great epic written for him by the mischievous scholar, Macpherson, just around a millennia and a half after Ossian passed into legend.

In the right hand panel is the exuberant Dundonian, William Topaz McGonagall - fan of Burns and victim of poet-baiting - who wrote perfectly dire poetry, perhaps on purpose, manufacturing his own dubious fame.

Hopefully the viewer, standing before A Tripartite Diptych: The Ploughman Poet flanked by Ossian/Macpherson and Topaz McGonagall will achieve an understanding of the subtleties of Scottish Romantic Poetry and the residue that it has left, just by looking very hard. Tripartite diptych: The Ploughman Poet flanked by Ossian/Macpherson and My work shows William McGonagall and Ossian/James MacPherson alongside Robert Burns, so the full gamut of Scottish poetry is Topaz McGonagall represented”. Robert Powell 2009 Coloured prints 76x114cm Ed Ruscha

Born in 1937 in Omaha, Nebraska, Edward Ruscha was raised in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Ruscha has consistently combined the cityscape of his adopted hometown with vernacular language to communicate a particular urban experience. Encompassing painting, drawing, photography, and artist's books, Ruscha's work holds the mirror up to the banality of urban life and gives order to the barrage of mass media-fed images and information that confronts us daily. Ruscha's early career as a graphic artist continues to strongly influence his aesthetic and thematic approach. Ruscha has been the subject of numerous museum retrospectives that have travelled internationally. In 2001, Ruscha was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters as a member of the Department of Art. Leave Any Information at the Signal, a volume of his writings and interviews, was published by MIT Press in 2002, and the first comprehensive monograph on the artist, Richard Marshall's EdRuscha was published by Phaidon in 2003. In 2005, Ruscha was the United States representative at the 51st Venice Biennale. A major retrospective will open at the Hayward Gallery in London in 2009. www.edruscha.com

Busted Glass#27 Busted Glass#28

2008 2008 Acrylic on museum board paper Acrylic on museum board paper 23.5x30.8cm 23.5x30.8cm Catherine Sargeant

Born in Neath, South Wales, educated in Arbroath, trained in Edinburgh as a nurse and midwife. In 2007 graduated from Edinburgh College of Art with 1st class BA(hons) in Drawing & Painting. Works from WASPS artists’ studios, Patriothall, Stockbridge, Edinburgh and Edinburgh Printmakers Workshop. Catherine’s work spans various disciplines and she aims to seamlessly combine traditional methods with contemporary ones while crossing the boundaries of fine art and design.

“As I’ve been discovering more about Burns I’ve found that his words are a foundation not just to our Scottish society but also a link across lands. This fits so well with my own work which is about the inherent beauty of words, language and communication.” Catherine Sargeant www.waspsstudios.org.uk/arts-programme/open- studios/artists/profile/catherine-sargeant

drop the e

2008 multilayered screenprint on somerset velvet 300gm 56x76cm 82x102cm framed Edition size 8 Timorous Beasties

The design studio Timorous Beasties was founded in Glasgow in 1990 by Alistair McAuley and Paul Simmons, who met while studying textile design at Glasgow School of Art. Typical of their work is the Glasgow Toile, a searingly contemporary graphic style, exploring social and political issues. At first glance it looks like one of the magnificent vistas portrayed on early 1800s Toile de Jouy wallpaper, but closer inspection reveals a nightmarish vision of contemporary Glasgow where crack addicts, prostitutes and the homeless are depicted against a forbidding backdrop of dilapidated tower blocks and scavenging seagulls. McAuley and Simmons also execute special commissions, such as fabrics for Philip Treacy’s hats and for the interiors of the Arches Theatre in Glasgow and 50 Piccadilly, a London casino. www.timorousbeasties.com

Death and Dr Hornbook

2009 Gravestone (detail) Simon Nicholas White

Born in Leeds, Simon is largely a self-taught photographer. Much of his current work derives from his fascination with Scotland’s coastlines, producing a series of extraordinary abstract images. He has exhibited at the RSA, RGI/Kelly and now has work in several collections. His most recent commission was a series of 12 large prints for the RBS art collection.

Simon lives and works in Edinburgh.

2 photographic prints – exclusive to ‘Inspired’, Homecoming Scotland 2009 www.simonnicholaswhite.com

Homecoming Scotland Naturesque #1 Homecoming Scotland Naturesque #2

2009 2009 Admiring Nature in her wildest grace, Wildly here without control. Nature reigns, and rules the whole; These northern scenes with weary feet I trace. In that sober pensive mood, Dearest to the feeling soul. (From Verses Written with a Pencil at the Inn at Kenmore) (From “Castle Gordon”) Giclee print Giclee print 100% cotton paper, archival, pigmented inks, 100% cotton paper, archival, pigmented inks, 80x60 cm (82x62 cm framed) 80x60 cm (82x62 cm framed) Edition size 50 Edition size 50 Adrian Wiszniewski

Adrian Wiszniewski was born in Glasgow in 1958. After attending the Glasgow School of Art in the early 1980’s his work came to the attention of the international art world and solo exhibitions followed in Australia, Japan and Europe as well as the UK. His work can be found in major public collections such as the Tate Gallery; London, MOMA; New York and Setagaya Museum; Tokyo. He has worked on several public commissions and in a range of media from tapestry to neon and theatre to ceramics. Painting and print making, however, remain central to his practice.

Highland Mary

2009 Drawing on paper 79cm x 55cm (110cm x 80cm framed) Edward Wright

Edward Wright graduated from the Goldsmiths MFA programme in “I began by reading a range of material by Robbie Burns, hoping to 2006. In 2008 he had solo shows at Mirko Mayer Galerie in find something relatively obscure or unusual that would dovetail with my Cologne, and at the Next Art Fair in Chicago (with Timothy Taylor interests. Eventually I realised that the most pertinent connection I have Gallery). He was born in Sydney, lives in London and has a website with his work is in fact the most obvious. I chose to make a work loosely registered in Switzerland. inspired by the sentiment in ‘Auld Lang Syne’, because it is with the very notions of communion and sociability that my work is engaged”. www.edwardwright.ch Edward Wright (Australian, living and working in London)

Club

2008 Oil and acrylic on canvas, 100 x125cm,